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A narco-submarine (also called narco-sub, drug sub and Bigfoot submarine) is a type of custom-made ocean-going self-propelled submersible vessel built by drug traffickers to smuggle drugs. They are especially known to be used by Colombian drug cartel members to export cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, which is often then transported overland to the United States. The first known vessels, detected in 1993, were semi-submersibles since they could not dive: most of the craft was submerged with little more than the cockpit and the exhaust gas pipes above the water. Newer narco-submarines are fully submersible, designed specifically to be difficult to detect visually or by radar, sonar and infrared systems.〔 Cargoes carried are typically several tons of cocaine. For example, in 2015 a cargo of over eight tons was found on a semi-submersible which had been tracked by aircraft.〔(The Guardian newspaper: US navy seizes submarine with seven tonnes of cocaine on board, 23 July 2015 )〕 == Cocaine-smuggling sea vessel == During the 1980s, go-fast boats became the drug-smuggling vessel of choice in many parts of the world.〔 These boats can be detected by radar; as radar coverage improved, Colombian drug cartels developed less easily detected semi-submersibles from the 1990s. The first time the U.S. Coast Guard found one, authorities dubbed it ''Bigfoot'' because they had heard rumors that such things existed, but none had actually been seen.〔 It was late 2006 when a ''Bigfoot'' was seized 145 km southwest of Costa Rica carrying several metric tonnes of cocaine. In 2006, US officials say they detected three; in 2008, they were spotting an average of ten per month, but only one out of ten was intercepted. Few were seized, as their crews scuttle them upon interception and they sink within a minute or so. By 2009, the U.S.A. detected as many as 60 narco submarine related events, and it was calculated that they were moving as much as 330 metric tonnes of cocaine per year. Costing up to two million dollars each to construct, the submarines can move enough cocaine in a single trip to generate more than 100 million USD in illicit proceeds for the traffickers.〔〔 After the November 5, 2010 arrest of Harold Mauricio Poveda,〔(The mafia rabbit ) (November 25, 2008)〕〔(Harold Mauricio Poveda Ortega, the biggest supplier of cocaine to powerful criminal organizations in Mexico )〕 a key Mexican-Colombian link, it is suspected that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is behind the construction of narco-submarines and is collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel to fund its armed activities.〔(Detienen al Conejo, proveedor de El Barbas ) ''El Universal''. November 5, 2010 (in Spanish)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Narco-submarine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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